Activision buys ‘Candy Crush’ maker for $5.9bn in bid to reach mobile audience

By Trevor Mogg November 3, 2015

moschino candy crush — CreativeCommons

Activision Blizzard has announced its intention to acquire Candy Crush Saga creator King Digital Entertainment in a deal valued at a hefty $5.9 billion.

For Activision, the purchase represents a major step toward the world of mobile gaming, adding to its already strong presence on console and PC platforms thanks to the huge popularity of its Call of Duty and World of Warcraft franchises, among others.

King was targeted by the company for its vast network of gamers across mobile, social, and Web platforms, with its most recent data claiming 474 million monthly active users globally.

One-hit wonder?

The deal comes despite King’s difficulty in creating a follow-up game as successful as Candy Crush, which it released across several platforms in 2012. The game remains one of the top grossing apps on both iOS and Android devices, but its struggle to replicate Crush‘s success has taken its toll on the company’s profits.

Having carefully considered all the stats, Activision nevertheless sees huge potential in King’s massive global community of mobile gamers.

Commenting on the deal, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said, “Mobile gaming is the largest and fastest-growing opportunity for interactive entertainment and we will have one of the world’s most successful mobile game companies and its talented teams providing great content to new customers, in new geographies throughout the world.”

King CEO Riccardo Zacconi said he was “excited” about the deal and that together the two companies “will have an amazing footprint, innovative technology, and leadership across platforms….to delight one of the largest networks of players in the world.”

King, which was founded in Sweden in 2003 before relocating to Dublin, currently has more than 1,600 employees at game studios and offices in around 12 countries.

The deal is expected to close by spring 2016, with Zacconi continuing to lead the company.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Computing

Best gaming PC deals: Lenovo Legion, ASUS ROG, Acer Predator

young woman playing video games on a PC

While build a gaming PC from scratch can be very rewarding, especially if you want to save a penny here and there, it takes a lot of work and tech savvy, and is often more than most folks want to deal wih. Luckily, there are some great pre-build PCs that you can take advantage of, and with some really excellent desktop computer deals, you can get something at almost the same cost of you building it yourself. As such, we've gone out and collected our favorite gaming PC deals for you to pick from, with some of the higher end-options being able to easily run the best PC games on the market right now.
Best gaming PC deal for entry-level gamers
Lenovo LOQ Tower -- $850, was $1,150

Gaming

What is DPS in gaming?

Two squads of heroes clash in an Overwatch 2 trailer.

Gaming is filled with jargon that sounds like complete nonsense to anyone not totally plugged into the space. Terms like Metroidvania and rouguelike/roguelite are rough enough, but when we abbreviate terms, it can be impossible to figure out what they mean, even when said in context. DPS is a term first used mainly in MMORPGs, but it has found its way into other genres like hero shooters and single-player RPGs, among others. It can, and is, applied to just about every game involving combat of some sort. If you've heard people complaining about their DPS, or see it listed as part of a weapon's stats, here's what it all means.
What does DPS mean?
DPS stands for Damage Per Second. It is shorthand for saying how powerful a weapon or character is by either listing its DPS as a number -- in which case the higher the number, the better -- or as its general role in a team. DPS on a weapon takes into account several things to make one more consumable stat, including how much damage it deals with each attack and how quickly it can attack. By dividing those numbers into seconds, you can equally compare how much any weapon or ability will do compared to another. For example, if one weapon hits every 2 seconds for 100 damage, the DPS would be 50, while a weapon that hits four times per second, but only deals 25 damage per hit, would have a DPS of 100.

In team games, DPS is often used to refer to one of the major roles. Tanks are characters meant to absorb most of the damage, healers heal, and DPS characters are the ones in charge of dealing the bulk of the team's damage. They are the team's aggressive killers, such as Soldier 76 in Overwatch 2 or the Black Mage in Final Fantasy 14. All their abilities and skills tend to be offensive-focused and need to rely on the other classes to support them.

Gaming

Best gaming console deals: cheapest prices on PS5, Xbox S and X and Switch

father and son playing video games

While the latest generation of consoles had a bit of a slow start, things have heated up in the last few years, and for those who have been waiting to pick up a console, now is a pretty good time when it comes to games, accessories and the like. There are a lot of great Xbox Series S and X deals, PlayStation 5 deals, and Nintendo Switch deals for you to check out, and we've collected the best we could find below. That said, it's important to note that we're currently going through a bit of a deals drought, even when it comes to refurbished consoles, so there aren't a ton of options out there, although be sure to check back as we do regularly keep track of deals and will update this article as better deals appear.
Xbox Series S 1TB -- starting at $349, was $380

The Xbox Series S is the less powerful but cheaper option out of the newest generation Xbox line. When comparing the Xbox Series S versus the Xbox Series X, the Series S takes a hit in all the component categories. That means it's not quite as fast. But if you're not hung up on getting the optimal performance out of your system, you'll actually notice very few differences. The two biggest ones are the Series S's inability to play in 8K, and its lack of a disc drive. Most people don't even have 8K TVs, so that shouldn't be an issue. If you're alright with downloading all of your games straight to the console's memory (and you have a separate DVD or Blu-Ray player), the Series S will work fine. It's quite a bit smaller anyway, and easier to fit on a shelf.